IndustryGamers - Who Killed PC Gaming?However, when we talk about the "death of PC gaming" anyone who follows
the industry should know what we mean. On retail shelves, less and less
space is allocated to PC titles. Increasingly, multi-platform developers are
treating the PC like a secondary priority. The PC used to get many games
before consoles, and now it's often the other way around. And then there are
games like Gears of War 2 which won't even be coming to PC at all. Core
gaming on the PC isn't what it once was, and the situation isn't likely to
get much better with time. According to NPD, PC games totaled just $701
million in 2008, which is down 14 percent from 2007.

GameTopius - Nothing Wins The Justice: Video Games, The First Amendment, and
Obscenity.This question is a tough one for the very good reason that no video game
developer or publisher has ever been prosecuted for obscenity related to
video games. As we have seen, if the medium of video games are held to the
same standard as literature and film then, presumably, they can also be held
to be obscene. One of the reasons for the lack of obscenity prosecution
against video game developers and publishers is that the courts have limited
obscenity to sexual content only. In fact, the courts have gone so far as to
specifically reject calls to alter the definition of “obscenity” to include
violent content in video games.

Edge Online - Simulacra And Simulacrap.The idea of simulation – the closest approximation of reality in digital
form – really suits certain genres. Racing a car, for example, where the
player’s possible interactions are limited to a couple of pedals, a
gearstick and wheel, can be modelled closely. So too can flying an
aeroplane, where the number of possible inputs via a keyboard resembles the
bewildering number of switches at the disposal of a pilot. But the
vicissitudes of human behaviour have yet to be captured. ArmA 2 gives it a
go, all the same. Yet, as Bohemia Interactive’s war sims have scaled up the
choices available to the player to a level more closely resembling that
available to a squad leader and even general, so its level of realism has
fallen away.

Kotaku - Why It's Hard To Make Today's Games Funny.What separates games from movies or books is the gameplay, and developers
have to take that gameplay into consideration. They aren't simply riffing to
a bunch of people sitting in a darkened bar. They're trying to entertain
someone who just finished slaughtering enemy forces or solving a difficult
puzzle. That requires someone possessing not only a strong grasp of humor,
but an understanding of how games and gamers tick.

Agreed, I think it's more accurate to say AAA PC retail is dead. PC gaming in general is "ok", certainly not healthy by any means due to the massive inflations in MMO numbers vs non-MMO games but it's definitely not dead.